Short Abstract:

This laboratory experiments with the emergent methodologies that introduce other-than-human perspectives into social and artistic research. Non-humans are also affected by the current malaise and we can imagine getting better by paying attention to other organisms and their ways of world-making.

Long Abstract:

The laboratory is aimed at examining the tension between world-making and world-destroying processes that result in the current malaise; the underlying assumption is that one is inextricable from the other. We will focus specifically on the capitalist world-making project and on abstraction as the world-making and world-destroying practice.

The chosen other-than-human perspective is that of the slime mold Physarum polycephalum, which is widely used as an abstract model of global connection and world-making. Physarum is an expert in networks and for this reason it is used in experiments that create or re-create networks at various scales. In those experiments its world-making practice is abstracted into graphs or algorithms.

In the first part of the lab we will examine the human and the slimy world-making practices with the focus on how Physarum networks are rendered abstract and scalable. The second part of the lab involves a speculative exercise aimed at exploring the ways of bringing our thinking back to materiality. The participants will be asked to design an experiment in material thinking with Physarum. By engaging in creative speculation and collectively designing Physarum experiments, the lab will also explore methodological affinities between anthropology and the arts and examine the questions each of those disciplines is able to ask.

Technical requirements: video projector

Maximum number of participants: no limit